


Blood In My Ears And A Fool In The Mirror

by Bonymaloney (orphan_account)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Character Death, Fist Fights, Grief/Mourning, Injury, M/M, Makeup Sex, Medical, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-21 08:42:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12453720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Bonymaloney
Summary: Why does Coran feel so much pressure to perform, to the point he’s willing to drug himself to help Voltron? (Also, what happened to his glorious ponytail?)





	1. Chapter 1

“What happened to your hair, Coran?”

Aurora’s voice cut through the silence in their quarters, the first word any of them had spoken in over thirty dobashes. They were three exhausted people, picking through a late night meal, alone together with their thoughts. Alfor, desperately trying to find a strategy to turn the tide of the losing war. Aurora, risking her life every time her ship ran the blockade. And Coran, running himself ragged to maintain all their equipment and supplies, now that the Empire controlled more and more territory. 

Alfor knew that stress and lack of sleep meant that he wasn’t at his most observant, but now that Aurora had pointed it he couldn’t believe he’d missed what was different. 

The ponytail he was so vain of was gone. He’d had short hair before, of course, the vivid, spiky crop he’d worn when Alfor first met him. But this was different. His hair was swept roughly back, and ended abruptly at the base of his neck. It looked straggly, as though it had simply been chopped off- very unlike Coran. 

“Well, it’s a funny story!” Coran chirped, and Alfor became suddenly convinced he was lying. The way his face changed as he smiled was like watching him put on a mask. “There was a problem with one of the shuttle bay doors, and it was keeping us from taking off. So I stuck my head in to have a squizzle at the mechanism, and someone decided to choose that moment to give the door another go. And my hair got all tangled up and, well, it was this or... “

Alfor felt a sudden surge of annoyance, no less acute for the fact that he recognised how unreasonable it was. Coran was forever persisting with his jokes and his enthusiasm, as though nothing mattered to him beyond lifting Alfor’s spirits. Coran was tireless and loyal, and Alfor didn’t deserve him...

“Tell me what really happened,” he snapped, sharper than he’d intended, but Aurora caught his eye and nodded and he knew she’d read the situation the same way.

Coran looked bashful. “Well, the shuttle did break down. So I had to take my armour off so I could fit through the hatch, and I might have got a bit... shot at. Singed half of the old ‘do right off .”

Alfor slammed his hand down on the table. He’d put so much care and attention into that armour to protect Coran, _his_ Coran, and Coran has been so proud to wear it... Aurora sat back and watched them, eyes narrowed. 

“Was there really no one else that could have fixed it?” 

“Not as fast as me. I’m the Coranic, remember?” It was true, stupid nicknames aside, and Alfor huffed. 

“Why haven’t you gone to the infirmary?”

Coran’s face fell, the mask slipping, and Alfor could see the fine lines around his eyes, the weight he’d lost. He looked old. They all looked old. 

“The pods are all full,” he said, looking away. 

Alfor sat back and sighed. It hadn’t gone well. 

“Well, let me take a look at you then,” he said, and pushed up heavily from the table to fetch his alchemical kit.

Coran lay on his front on the bed, jacket and undershirt removed. A large field dressing was plastered between his shoulder blades, extending to the base of his neck. Alfor gave him a sacred herb to chew before peeling it back. 

“You don’t need to worry about me, I’m a tough old bird. It just feels like sunburn,” Coran said irritably, but flinched when Alfor touched the skin lightly. An angry red stripe, with blistered, broken skin where it was at its widest. He’d been hit by a plasma bolt, but it had only grazed him, making the barest contact with his skin. Alfor was dizzy with a mixture of relief and horror at the thought of what could have been. 

“You’ve been very lucky, Coran.”

“Lucky? I’ve lost my beautiful flowing locks, my crowning glory, my - ah!”

“Shhh.” Alfor soothed him, and gently began to clean. 

By the time his wound was cleaned, packed with healing powder and dressed, Coran was trembling, jaw clenched and knuckles white. Alfor kissed him, gazing into those dear violet eyes as he gave Coran the tiniest drop of quintessence, pressing his finger against the bone behind his ear, a soporific spot for most Alteans. Coran’s eyes widened, and Alfor saw a look of profound relief on his face as he slipped into sleep. 

When Alfor left the bedroom, Aurora was waiting for him. 

“He’s alright?”

“He’s alright,” Alfor confirmed. “Listen, I’ve changed my mind. I’m not sending you to the Vebraskans.”

“Why?!”

“We can’t- I can’t-“ and then he was crying, Aurora holding him. 

“I have to go,” she said eventually. “We can’t afford to become isolated. Zarkon knows how strong we were as a coalition, he was part of it. He wants to stop you forming a new one.”

“I forbid it.”

“You can’t forbid it- can’t forbid me!”

“I’m the King.”

“And I’m the Queen! You can’t give me orders!”

“You can’t give me orders!” Coran yelled deliriously in response.

“Yes we can!” Aurora snapped back at him. He acquiesced with a mumble, and a few ticks later they heard him snoring again. 

They looked at each other, and held each other, and laughed, with a few more tears that they each thought they managed to hide from the other. 

Coran didn’t take up much space in bed. He slept like a man used to bunks and bedrolls, curled neatly at the edge of the mattress. As if to compensate, however, he would acquire every available blanket and cover. On Alfor’s other side, Aurora sprawled like the Queen she was, claiming the territory she was entitled to and then some. Alfor was entirely unable to sleep between them, and he was delighted. He slipped gently out from between them and went through to Allura’s room, and spent some time just watching her sleep. Afterwards he returned to bed and lay there relishing the way Aurora’s dusky pink, Coran’s turquoise and his own deeper blue glowed softly together. 

Coran’s dreams were both indistinct and uncomfortably vivid. He could feel something pressing down on his back, something hot and heavy and sharp, like an animal crouching over him with its claws out, like a cat-

When Alfor and Aurora joined him, their warmth and their scent penetrated his dream, banishing the cat, and he settled. He was lying with the sun warm on his back, in the fields surrounding the castle of his boyhood, but it couldn’t last. 

He awoke to the sound of Alfor sobbing.


	2. Chapter 2

Coran woke slowly, aware at first only that his limbs were heavy and his mouth was dry. Someone was crying - Alfor was crying - and he sat up, disoriented, his heart suddenly racing in his chest. The light was wrong - he’d slept far longer than he usually allowed himself, far _too_ long when there was always so much to be done. 

And Alfor was crying. His face was drawn and hopeless in a way Coran couldn’t ever remember seeing before. Even when things were at their worst, Alfor was determined. It was why he was King, it was why Coran loved him. 

Alfor saw him awake and he opened his mouth to speak. Coran tried to go to him, but he felt as though he were moving through syrup, hands and feet icy cold, blood rushing in his ears as Alfor told him that Aurora was dead. 

His first, foolish thought was how disrespectful it was to be receiving such news half dressed, and he spun round looking for his undershirt, until his eyes fell on the now empty bed, on the space where Aurora always slept, and his knees gave way. Alfor sat heavily beside him and they wept, clinging tightly together against the pain of having part of them ripped away. 

Alfor told him through his sobs of how he’d watched on the viewscreen, the icon that represented Auroras craft detected and surrounded. How he’d been able to talk to her before it blinked out. Coran’s belly hurt so badly he thought he might faint. He’d slept through his chance to say goodbye. 

With supply lines cut off and allies blockaded, the state funeral for the Queen was nowhere near as splendid as that for Zarkon, a fact that filled Coran with a quiet cold rage, grinding his teeth and clenching his fist so hard against the shaft of his spear it actually hurt as he stood at attention in his pink uniform, guarding her bier as Alfor spoke. He’d been drunkenly swearing vengeance every night since he’d heard the news, but this was the first time he realised he really _meant_ it. He’d fetch Zarkon’s head on a pole if that was what it took to see Alfor smile again. 

In fact, he realised after a while, he was seeing less and less of Alfor, smiling or otherwise. Alfor was busy with some new project, making subtle changes to some of the Castleship systems. It was the kind of thing Coran should have known about, but a combination of guilt that he’d been asleep when the King and Queen had needed him, and petty resentment over Alfor’s distant behaviour, kept him from asking. 

It wasn’t like they normally spent all of their time together, of course. Coran had many duties, and Alfor was King. But when they were both in the castle he was used to being summoned up to Alfor’s quarters during the day, for his guidance, his company, or something a little more physical. A pep talk, Aurora had called it, after the excuse Coran had blurted out the first time she’d walked in on them, back when the relationship between the three of them was still new and things were still being established, and oh Ancients she was so funny, and quick and kind and...

Coran wiped away a tear and went back to recalibrating the teludav, pushing down the anxious thoughts he was having about Alfor. He would see him that night.

In fact it was one of the worst nights of his life. Alfor would barely look at him. In a flat voice he listed the positions of their units and the enemy forces, and then he told Coran he no longer needed him in the field, at his councils, or even on the repair deck. He was to stay with Allura. 

“... and I want you to move back into your quarters.”

For a second Coran was confused. It had been decaphoebs since he’d slept anywhere but the Royal bed when he was at home. Then he thought of his official quarters, a small suite of rooms where he’d taken to keeping mementos, works in progress, and a few mice. It was slightly closer to Allura’s room, but the girl was practically full grown, preparing for a command of her own. It would be downright strange if she needed him for anything. 

He would be alone, and Alfor would be alone. 

“Don’t do this, Alfor. Please...”

Alfor still wouldn’t look at him. 

“When Zarkon breaks through our lines, which will be in one phoeb or less, you will take Allura and you’ll engage the overrides I’ve installed. You’ll get into the cryopods, and the Castleship will take you to safety.”

“But nowhere's safe! And what about you?”

“Nowhere is safe now. But in the future, it will be. It’s the only way I can give Allura a chance. “

“How far in the future?” 

“Get back to your post, guardsman,” Alfor said coldly, and Coran hit him. 

It wasn’t much of a fight. Alfor was taller, with longer reach, but he was tired, while Coran was furious but miserable. They struggled briefly and neither would stop, until Alfor accidentally broke Coran’s nose with a crunch. For a tick they were both frozen, Alfor with a horrified expression on his face, Coran swaying lightly. He reached out to Alfor for support, and then they were kissing, teeth clashing together like hadn’t happened since they were both much younger men, and Coran could taste blood and tears and he couldn’t tell which was whose. 

“Let me do it,” he begged. “Let me fight Zarkon, I can hold him off, you can take Allura. Please don’t make me leave you behind.”

“Coran...” Alfor wiped his eyes and kissed him again, more gently. “It has to be me. If I can’t save my people then it’s wrong to save myself. I am the King.”

Coran knelt and pressed his face to Alfor’s hand like he had when he’d first sworn his oath to him. Alfor stroked his hair, and Coran pulled him down to meet him, biting and clawing and demanding until Alfor surged into him and made him forget everything else for a while. 

Afterwards, they lay on the floor together wrapped in a blanket, and Coran rested his head on Alfor’s shoulder. 

“I’m sorry, Coran.” Alfor was whispering, thick hurried words. “I can’t watch you go to your death. You’re stronger than me; I need you to do this for me. For Allura.”

Coran embraced him made a humming, soothing sound that was equal parts acknowledgement, forgiveness, and general postcoital contentment. He flinched at the way it made his nose hurt, but it didn’t matter. He would serve Alfor. 

“What would the missus say if she could see us now? A pair of idiots, lying on the floor like...”

“...like idiots,” Alfor finished, and chuckled. “She would have been sorry she missed it.”

“Remember when she used to dress up to be in my videos for the cadets...”

“Remember the first time she ate your cooking...”

“Remember when we went hunting and the rockfall nearly got us...”

They talked and slept the rest of the night on the floor, and awoke the next morning with sore bodies but clear hearts.


End file.
